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Boston Unlocked

Last month, the Onion turned its consistently cogent eye to the city of Boston, noting that the rest of the nation enjoyed watching as “Bostonians buzz about their daily routines in a delightful hubbub of excitement as if they lived in a major American metropolis.” Only the blindly proud could have bristled: Boston is a small city, and it feels like a small town. Most everything that was true about metro Boston before Monday’s attack on the marathon remained true on Tuesday, as the city swiftly returned to nearly normal operations. It remained true in the early hours of Friday, when events lurched in another direction, forcing the area into essential lockdown as the police hunted for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. And it remains true on Saturday, when residents have returned to the normal chores and cares and small joys of the weekend, unsettled now not by the idea that terrorist bombers are on the loose but, instead, that the alleged bombers could have come from the area’s neighborhoods, and blended back into them temporarily after the attack. (See David Remnick’s piece on the brothers’ background.)

Through the entire week, greater Boston felt more like a small town than ever. Everyone, it seemed, knew someone who had been in the marathon—a runner who had finished just before the bombs went off, or who was caught between them, or who was somewhere out on the course. Everyone had a friend or a friend-of-a-friend who had joined the gathering near the finish, and had felt or heard the blasts. Everyone knew a medical professional or a cop or a first responder who had thrown themselves into hours of unexpected work, seeing shocking things. Many people knew someone who had been hurt or lost a limb. On Friday, everyone thought of friends out in Watertown, stuck in their houses as hundreds of heavily armed law-enforcement agents combed the streets. On Facebook, they sent messages back, thanking people for their concerns. They were drinking coffee and reading the Internet, just like the rest of us. And many had a story about some cousin or acquaintance or former classmate who had known Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Robin Young, a radio host at one of the local public-radio stations, was shocked on Friday to realize that Dzhokhar was a good friend of her nephew’s. She posted a photograph of the two boys standing arm-in-arm in high-school graduation robes. She interviewed her nephew: “Even still looking at the picture, even still looking at the reports, it’s still kind of hard to accept that this would happen and accept that this would be him,” he said. Terrorism had been shrunken down to the city’s small scale, and the physical suffocation that people felt while being trapped inside all day was matched by a psychic suffocation—it was all too close.

By six o’clock on Friday evening, the uneasy and sometimes terrifying day seemed likely to extend into the weekend. Tsarnaev remained at large. Governor Deval Patrick announced at a press conference that the lockdown had been lifted. He said that it was safe for people to go out, but asked them to exercise heightened vigilance. That was good news, except that the cause of the lockdown, at least according to officials, had not changed. Timothy Alben, Superintendent and Colonel of the Massachusetts State Police, said that he would not comment on whether or not Tsarnaev had possession of a car, though he noted that it was likely that he remained in Massachusetts: “I don’t have any direct knowledge that he is here in the Boston area, but we don’t think he’d get much further.” His ties were in the area, Alben said. The very place where it was now safe for citizens to go outside. Alben said that a heightened police presence would remain in Watertown, to provide support to the community. Dzhokhar was somewhere, though Alben wouldn’t speculate where. People have to be “extremely careful,” he added.

As the hours passed on Friday, commentary began to circulate questioning the wisdom of issuing such a wide shutdown of a major American city. What would the lost day cost? Was it sending a message that a few people had the power to bring the workings of a city to a halt? Was the lockdown necessary at all? (John Cassidy makes this case.)

Governor Patrick defended the decision to shut down public transportation and remand hundreds of thousands of people to their homes, noting that Watertown had been the site of a major shooting. There had been a dangerous car chase through the streets of Cambridge and Watertown, where a grenade and pipe bombs were reportedly thrown at the police. Two hundred rounds had been fired in the streets. It was possible that officials knew more than they were telling us; likely, even. In the days to come, it will be debated whether or not the lockdown was necessary, and whether lifting it on Friday evening was a strategy by law enforcement to push the manhunt in a new direction.

At the time, I wondered about the logic behind ending the lockdown, but, eager for something to do, I decided to go to J. J. Foley’s, a nearby Irish bar. I called first to see if they were even open, a naïve thing to do, I was reminded, by the brusque voice who barked that of course they were. Bars close too early in Boston, as anyone from New York will tell you, but they’re not likely to skip a day. Dunkin’ Donuts stayed open all day, at the request of local officials, to provide food and drink to police and emergency responders. In Boston, Dunkies is essentially an arm of the government. Inside Foley’s, Dzhokhar’s face filled two flat-screen TVs, the word “WANTED” splashed in red across the bottom. A few minutes later, a cheer broke out as the stations flashed to developing news. Dzhokhar was pinned down. He was in a boat? Was he alive? The standoff went on, and we were back home when his capture was announced. Someone in another apartment let out a celebratory shout. After a week that began in the bright sunshine of Boylston Street and ended with the capture of Dzhokhar in the dark, in a boat in Watertown, many in the city responded with the kind of exuberant massing that normally follows local sports teams winning a championship. That Dzhokhar had been taken alive made the celebratory mood a bit less unseemly. When local officials gathered for a press conference, their local drawls, catching on words like “perimeter” and “officer,” were a final comfort in a long day.

Euphoria could have its brief moment, but it would be short: it was announced that Dzhokhar would not be read his Miranda rights yet. Boston was returning to normal, but this manhunt, investigation, and prosecution were all something new and different. Later, the President spoke, praising the investigation, reaffirming his and Boston’s commitment to diversity and tolerance, and forcing everyone to remember that there had been other bad news this week: as many as sixty people were feared missing after the fertilizer-plant explosion in West, Texas. The world would move on whether Boston was ready to or not.

This morning, highway signs in town flashed the words: “WE ARE ONE BOSTON. THANK YOU TO ALL.” The Red Sox started at one. Before the game, David Ortiz spoke to the crowd, and, in the week’s greatest moment of catharsis, said, “This is our fucking city.” And next April, there will be a marathon. I caught up on the phone with Jamie Hoag, a runner whom I had met near Copley Square less than an hour after the bombs went off on Monday. He had been standing alone in the street, shivering in shorts and wearing just a space blanket that a stranger had given him. His eyes were round and huge. He’d not yet heard from his family and friends, whom he feared were in the crowd.

Hoag grew up in Fall River, Massachusetts, and now lives in Washington, D.C. He ran this year’s marathon to raise money for the Massachusetts Military Heroes Fund, which supports families of soldiers who have died since 9/11. He made it 26.1 miles before the bombs chased him off the course. After we spoke, he had to wait another hour before he met up with his supporters. They were all safe. Hoag is back in D.C. now, and this morning he went for his first run since Monday. Just four miles, but he said he was committed to keeping himself in good shape. “So many people I’ve talked to say they want to run the race,” he said. “And others, people who can’t run that far, have told me that they are determined to make the crowd at the finish line the biggest it’s ever been.” Hoag says he’ll be there, too, running that last tenth of a mile, and all the ones before it. “We all saw so many random acts of kindness on Monday. That’s the true spirit of the city. No bomb can change that.”